Stolen Vengeance: Slye Temp book 6 (17 page)

“How sure are you it’s related to Satan’s Garden Club?” she asked.

Here we go.
Dingo said, “That would be a reasonable assumption based on those I saw years ago.”

Josh had covered his eyes with his hand as if he didn’t want to see the blood bath building.

In for a penny
... Dingo added, “If I hadn’t been ordered to return immediately, I could have stayed long enough to gather more intel.” Dingo could have hunted for Rikker.

Sabrina unfolded her arms and dropped her hands down on the table to support her body when she leaned forward. “What specific intel?”

He wasn’t about to admit seeing Rikker in front of the team. He’d tell Sabrina and Josh later. “Hard to say since I didn’t have the opportunity.”

Her jaw flexed. Furious.

She stood up. “Nick, please take everyone except Dingo and Josh to the other war room and let’s get started on figuring out what our next step is and take another look at all three sets of initials. Clearly there will be more than one assassin going after targets at this rate.”

Nick said, “Will do, but before I leave, I picked up a tip tonight on one of the artifacts the Orion Hunters are after.” Sabrina’s gaze whipped over to Nick. “You had a resource at the event? Was it someone inside the hunters?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know the information is reliable?”

Drawing in an uneasy breath, Nick said, “You don’t want to hear this, but we’ve had help from this person on a number of missions and the only way I’m given intel is by protecting the identity of this resource. This person suspected something was going down at the event, told me what could be shared and offered to share more later if new information became available.”

Sabrina’s chin moved like she was grinding her teeth. She said, “Thank you. We’ll discuss that later.”

That was Sabrina’s way of saying she expected Nick to come clean about how much he was sharing of Slye Temp intel in return.

Once everyone had vacated the room and the door to the hallway snapped shut, Dingo waited on Sabrina to get her piece said first.

He’d learned back during his early years that remaining quiet often meant being spared a beating. He had no fear of Sabrina, not physically, but words were often more deadly than getting slashed with a knife. They would both regret anything said in anger. He sat back, the vision of cool and calm.

The door to Sabrina’s private quarters opened and Dingo knew right then that it was going to get ugly.

Gage Laughton walked in.

Chapter 20

Josh glanced over at Dingo, then back at Sabrina. “What the fuck is he doing here?”

Glad to see that Josh wasn’t in on this, Dingo muttered, “Took the words out of my mouth.” 

A mix of emotions formed in Sabrina’s face, but worry and guilt stood out the strongest. She held up a hand. “You know that Gage has helped with intel in recent months. He gave us the image of Rikker in DC. He’s also the person who told me about Bergman’s killer being an Orion Hunter so it would be wrong for me to ignore his intel.”

“Because he’s so bloody honest, right?” Dingo quipped.

“At least I don’t lie to Sabrina,” Gage countered.

Josh said, “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“Hold it!” Sabrina’s black eyebrows pulled tight at the bridge of her nose and her voice turned hard as granite. “Gage has some disturbing information and I want him to get it out first then we’ll talk. Give him a chance to explain what he told me just before everyone returned.”

How long had that bastard been camped out in her private area? Just the fact that he was here, this close to the team and the mission soured Dingo’s stomach.

When Dingo caught Gage and Sabrina exchanging a quick look, hair danced along his neck. He had that hinky feeling, the kind a person got right before they stepped on a land mine.

Standing with hands in the pockets of his black cargo pants, Gage lifted his chin and fixed his gaze on Dingo. “I heard what was said in here during the debriefing. I’ve gone through all the videos up to ten minutes ago. I know who killed the sniper or who wants credit for the killing.”

That was definitely news and from the lack of surprise on Sabrina’s part, she knew too.

Josh jumped on Gage’s words. “Who?”

Sabrina said one word that cracked the silence. “Rikker.”

Josh stared in disbelief. “No fucking way. We’d have seen him.”

Gage argued, “He had to already be inside the event before any security or your team was on site. Whatever exit strategy he had was the same one the assassin had intended to use, because he didn’t come out of the hallway to the stairwell after he killed the sniper. And you don’t have that surveillance tape, do you?”

“We did but–”

“Your camera died,” Gage finished. “Don’t you find it odd that one of your cameras was out of commission at a critical time?”

All through this, Dingo watched Sabrina whose eyes wouldn’t meet his. “Why aren’t you surprised to hear Rikker’s name right now, Sabrina?”

She drew her chin up and held her body as if fortifying her backbone. “Rikker was here ten days ago, but there was no sighting of him again until now.”

“Is that what Gage told you?”

“Yes.”

Josh was a ball of energy waiting to burst. “Is this another Rikker crumb thrown our way?”

Dingo said, “Because we aren’t in the loop.”

Sabrina’s voice was on edge. “He’s sharing information with me that the agency isn’t getting.”

“Why?” Dingo asked, sending that straight at Gage.

“Because of all that’s happened recently to convince me that the Orion Hunters are a dangerous group and I have no way of knowing where they might have infiltrated the government.”

Dingo lifted his hand and counted off fingers in Gage’s direction. “You knew Rikker was in LA as recently as ten days ago, but we’re only just now finding out.” He paused to check Sabrina’s rigid mask that didn’t change then continued. “You’re now saying there’s a connection between him and the hunters, but even
if
that’s dependable intel we don’t know if Rikker’s behind these killings or working against the hunters and last, but not least by any means, you’ve insinuated the camera on the hallway was disarmed intentionally.”

When Sabrina did not say a word, Dingo pinned her with a hard glare. “Have I got that about right? If so, now you can clear up the muddy parts like who you think disarmed a camera when I was the only one dealing with it, and why Gage is here now, since
you
could have told us all that?”

“He’s got more to show you,” she offered.

She’d said “you,” as in for Dingo and Josh.

Gage waited while Sabrina also said, “Valene Eklund was at the event.”

Dingo was so busy trying to pull these crazy threads together in his head that he said, “Valene? What’s she got to do with this?”

“But you know she was there, right?” Sabrina questioned.

“Sure. I saw her.”

“Did you know she’d be there?”

“No, but it’s not that surprising. LA
is
her stomping ground.”  But now that Gage had pointed out Valene to Sabrina first, he’d kiboshed Dingo’s chance to tell Sabrina and Josh about seeing Valene tonight. In fact, he wasn’t about to admit to seeing anyone in front of Gage-fucking-Laughton.

Gage’s eyes narrowed, judging Dingo and questioning his words with a steady look. “Did Eklund tell you
why
she was at the event?”

Dingo dodged that question by countering, “Why should she? Last I checked this was a free country.”

“Did she meet with anyone while she was there?”

“What is this, a fucking inquisition?”

“Just answer him,” Sabrina pleaded softly.

“Why? When did he become part of our missions?”

Gage said, “When I started filling Sabrina in on what her people were hiding from her.”

Josh shoved up to his feet, all semblance of the cultured veneer disappearing under a whip of fury. “So this fucker has you convinced that
we’re
lying to you?”

Sabrina was quick to say, “No, Josh.”

Dingo caught the single reference. “Not
Josh
, but what about me, Sabrina? Do you think I’m lying to you?”

She hesitated a second before looking at Dingo. That had been all the answer Dingo needed even though she was shaking her head and saying, “I just want you to tell me what’s going on with Valene.”

“What the hell do you think is going on?” Dingo asked right back.

“Stop answering me with a question,” she snapped at him. Her phone buzzed. She eyed it and made a sound under her breath then looked at Dingo. “Do me one favor, Dingo, and listen to what Gage has to say. He’s helped us out in the past when it counted.”

“If that’s all the criteria you need then what about Valene? She pulled markers everywhere to help us stop a terrorist attack. Doesn’t that count for something?”

Silence must have sucked the oxygen from the room, because no one said a word.

Dingo had never been put in a position of defending himself or his actions. That Sabrina would stand there and allow this ripped the fabric of their relationship. Dingo crossed his arms and decided to see this through, then give her a chance to explain herself.

Gage was the only man she’d ever gotten seriously involved with and the UK mission had screwed badly with her head. As her friend, Dingo would allow her the opportunity to fix her mess, and he hoped she took it.

Dingo said, “I saw Valene talk to different people and I understand that she had a ticket that would have allowed her sixty seconds to meet with Tinker. Everyone in this room knows that Valene’s expertise is in antiquities and Renaissance antiques. Now show me why you’re standing there in support of this prick, Sabrina.”

The prick in question asked, “Are you sure Valene had no ulterior motive for helping the last time you were here?”

Dingo turned to Josh whose fingers had scrambled his hair that had been nicely styled a moment ago, and he saw no clue in that gaze so Dingo asked Sabrina, “Are you suggesting Valene found the Korean doctor treating the physicists brought over here for a criminal reason? What kind of screwed up question is that? Valene has always been on the right side of the law.”

“Maybe in the past,” Gage agreed. “But things have changed.”

“Like what?” Dingo’s temper rarely showed up, but it was boiling closer to shooting over the edge every second.

“Like the fact that her client list has fallen off significantly over the past three years and that she desperately needs money for her father’s medical expenses? For a special treatment because he’s got a rare lung cancer?”

No. Dingo didn’t know that, and the fact that he didn’t punched him in the gut. Valene had always wanted to know more about him, but he’d intentionally kept some distance with her, or he thought he had. Based on the sick feeling flooding him, he hadn’t been as smart as he’d thought, and the result was that she’d been in trouble and hurting and he hadn’t been around to help. Could the woman he thought he knew so well actually be committing a crime willingly?

All these pieces were piling up against Valene.

Had he lost all perspective on this?

Or had he spent that much time with someone who’d been playing him all along?

Dingo answered in a weary voice, “That should explain why she was at the event tonight. She was probably networking for new clients.”

“With a ticket that cost twelve grand?”

Dingo
had
questioned that and even more so now, but he wouldn’t admit it to Gage. “She’s connected in her field, and that means she knows a lot of high rollers. Knowing Valene, she made some deal for it.”  The words hurt coming out, but he added, “And she’s gorgeous. This is LA. Could be someone she’s dating gave her the ticket.”

Sabrina had listened quietly to the back and forth play between Dingo and Gage.

Josh must not have been dealing with this any better than Dingo, because he said, “Wait a damn minute. That’s why you wanted me to review Valene’s bank account. You two have been investigating all this and you didn’t bring me or Dingo in on it?”

“Thanks, mate.”  Dingo could still count on one person in spite of Josh snooping around in Valene’s records.

The look Sabrina gave him came with a shade of remorse that colored her voice. “I only found out for sure about Valene tonight, so no. I have not been investigating her behind your back. I only told you about Charlie because... ”

“You were looking for something to make me back away from her,” Dingo said, finishing her sentence. “But he
has
been investigating Valene.” Dingo lifted his chin in Gage’s direction. “Before, it was just about me, but now that Laughton tells you something you’re convinced Valene is dirty. Why?”

Gage said nothing.

Sabrina asked Dingo, “Do you realize how hard you’re working to defend Valene? So much that you might not be seeing everything clearly?”

He had one code and that was to take care of everyone who mattered to him, because that number was small and everyone in his circle was worth dying for. He’d never meant to get involved so deeply with Valene, but the truth was that he couldn’t be objective.

But no way was he saying that out loud.

He
would
get to the bottom of all this and find his own answers on Valene. He said, “Want to know what I see, Sabrina? I look at your boy there and I see betrayal that kept him at arm’s length for a while but that distrust is gone on your part,” Dingo pushed back at her. “He’s got you thinking that I’d cover for Valene if she was doing something criminal? And you just believe him? Is that it?”

Sabrina’s answer came out with brittle edges. “Are you telling me you wouldn’t help Valene if she got into trouble?”

“Define trouble.”

“Criminal activity.”

Had he fallen down some rabbit hole into an alternate universe? “What evidence do you have of her doing anything illegal?”

Dingo had expected Sabrina to look embarrassed at this point, not as if he’d asked the one question that was going to cut his heart out.

Gage fished a small remote from his pocket and pointed it at the large monitor behind Sabrina.

An image came to life with a frozen shot of Rikker in a restaurant having a meal. The silent screen images clicked by one at a time in a slide show of Rikker, then a woman meeting with him. She signed a tablet with a stylus and viewed something on that tablet. The last slides showed them both exiting the restaurant.

The next shot was another closeup of the woman that had every muscle in Dingo’s body twisting like a cable being tightened.

And there came the facial recognition software engaged, flashing images until it stopped on a perfect one of Valene.

Blood pounded so loud in Dingo’s ears it drowned out everything.